THE NORWEGIAN POLAR EXPEDITION. 431 



tic Ocean, whether as regular migrants or stragglers, after excluding the 

 twelve species which were ohserved near the Asiatic coast. The pres- 

 ence on the shores of the Siberian Sea of some of these twelve, however, 

 is of ornithological interest. There may be specially mentioned the 

 gray goose (Anser segehim), long-tailed duck (Harelda glacialis), silver 

 gull (Larus argentatus), snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca), gray plover 

 (Squatarola helvetica) and the red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus hy- 

 perboreans) . 



Confining ourselves to birds observed to the north of 81° 30, atten- 

 tion is called to the abundant avifauna of the western as compared with 

 the eastern hemisphere. In Kennedy Channel, Grinnell Land, there 

 have been recorded no less than thirty-two species against twenty-one 

 noted by the Fram in this voyage, including those seen in Franz Josef 

 Land. This is not surprising, however, when it is considered that the 

 drift of the Fram was across a deep ocean of large extent, which is 

 covered perpetually by an unbroken ice-pack, unrelieved by any view 

 of land until the north coast of Spitzbergen was seen. 



Omitting the birds observed in Franz Josef Land, the paucity of 

 species frequenting the great western Arctic Ocean is even more ap- 

 parent. The striking dissimilarity of the four regions traversed by the 

 Fram is plainly evident from the bird-life recorded. "While there were 

 observed nine species in the Siberian Sea, fifteen in the Franz Josef 

 Archipelago, eighteen in the Arctic Ocean and twenty-three on the 

 Asiatic coast, yet only five were common to all four regions, viz.: 

 the dovekie, the glaucous gull, the ivory gull, the kittiwake and the 

 snow-bird. 



The Siberian Sea presented a most limited avifauna, as in addition 

 to the five common species, there were recorded in the first summer in 

 the ice only the little auk, the fulmar, the roseate gull and a small skua. 

 The entire absence of land or shore birds that frequent Arctic islands, 

 omitting a single straggling snow-bird, indicates clearly that the Si- 

 berian Sea extends far northward unbroken by any land area. 



The eighteen species of birds that were found in the Arctic Ocean, 

 far to the north, naturally demand special comment. The six following 

 species are doubtless stragglers: the ringed plover (Aegialitis hiaticula), 

 82° 59' K., the most northerly shore-bird of Spitzbergen, Nordenskiold 

 having observed it on Seven islands, 80° 45' N.; the eider duck (Soma- 

 teria mollissima), 82° 55' 1ST., near Spitzbergen; the arctic tern (Sterna 

 macrura), 84° 32' N.; the puffin (Fratercula arctica glacialis), 83° 11' 

 N\, near Spitzbergen; the black-backed gull ((Larus marinus), 84° 35' 

 N". 75° E., and the Sabine gull (Xema Sahini), 83° N., near Spitz- 

 bergen. 



Of other species, the roseate gull ( Rhodosteihia rosea), 84° 41' 

 X., disappeared as the Fram drifted west from the longitude of Franz 



